


Summer Sun

by Ladycat



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s03e10-e11 The Return, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-12
Updated: 2014-02-12
Packaged: 2018-01-12 03:27:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1181334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's painful when Rodney looks so shy, glancing up through his eyelashes like he can't bear to see John jolted out of sleep, guilt already adding deep lines around his nose and mouth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Summer Sun

The water's still enough that it could be in someone's bathtub, glassy and smooth as they float on by, avoiding clumps of greenery that stretch up to the warm, afternoon sunshine, bugs singing harmonies all around them. It's peaceful enough to be down-right boring, but somehow escapes that particularly heinous label. It just is, air tart like wine on John's tongue, body completely at ease as he rests against his chosen plank, the gentle, barely-there movement of the boat better than any long-cherished rocking chair.

"I think I'm going to be sick."

"Pretty sure you can't get sea sick from being on a lake. And yeah, I've been on Lake Michigan." John extends one arm, dark against the glinting reflection of the sun, gesturing to the lack of eddies their boat makes. "Pretty sure this isn't Lake Michigan, though."

He's grinning, full up with smug and bastard because this whole day is edging past funny right on into a kind of perfection that'd be hysterical, if he had energy enough to laugh. McKay's clinging to the edge of the boat like the sturdy contraption is going to capsize any moment, green where he isn't flushed to a crisp, shiny red. He’d forgotten his sun screen. Rather, didn't get a chance to bring it when John appeared in the lab he'd been hurriedly sequestered in, barking, "McKay! Up and at 'em!" just to see him flail and squawk louder than any long-necked goose, even as he fumbled into immediate obedience.

He'd fallen in step with John, halfway to the top of the mountain before he'd remembered that they didn't go on missions anymore, or at least, Rodney didn't. 

He doesn't even carry a gun, no matter how his hand drops low against his right thigh when he’s nervous, searching for what won't ever be there if Landry has anything to say about it.

John doesn't like Landry, much. The feeling's mutual, although John could learn to respect what he doesn't like. He's pretty sure Landry'll never return that particular favor, though, so doesn't bother making an offer.

Rodney'd bitched and moaned and accused every step from the mountain to John's car, every furlong the car had sped on past. And each word, each glare or rapid, cutting gesture told John just how badly Rodney needed away from the science he doesn't have the heart to give himself to any longer, away from the memories that are eating him alive.

Not once did he raise his voice enough to show he _meant_ all the things he'd said, which is as close to a heart-felt, gasping thank you Rodney McKay can ever really manage.

"Seriously, Sheppard," Rodney quavers, voice thin like he's afraid to move too much. "You have to slow this thing down."

John looks at the boat, drifting slower than a toddler can amble, powered only by the current they wouldn't even _feel_ if they were in the water. Tilting his head to that ironic angle that always makes Rodney bristle, he says, "No."

"I hate you so much."

"Uh huh."

"If I’m sick, I am not aiming over the side!"

John grins, slouching so his shoulders rest against the prow. The wood is musty and old, hard enough to be painful, but it carries the laughter of little boys and smiles of proud fathers or uncles, and John lets himself sink in, remembering things he's never experienced himself. "There're rods," he says, cutting off a pretty little speech about angles of projection.

Rodney shoots him a poisonous look. "If that's a euphemism, I am going to strangle you for the good of mankind."

"No," John laughs, retaliating with a foot-nudge—Rodney lurches, gulping hard—and a smiles a smile he knows is like flame to Rodney's firecracker. "Not a euphemism. Fishing rods, McKay."

It's been three weeks, and it would've been four if not for Carter's sudden, painfully loathed need for Rodney's expertise. Fortunately for John, the few hours of consult had turned into a few days playing around in labs that were cramped and full of machinery better suited ‘to a playground for idiots’.

John remembers stumbling through the gate, nodding at Landry like he doesn't hate every molecule of slightly-heavier air he's breathing, like he doesn't object to being saddled with teammates that never would've been let offworld without an entire _company_ of minders, when it was up to him. He remembers the way Landry'd looked at him as he rattled off their paltry list of adventures, choking on bitterness and resentment turned almond in his throat.

But mostly, he remembers the way Cameron didn't look at him directly when he'd stuck his head into the infirmary, rattling off a string of words John can't quite recall beyond _lake_ and _O'Neill_ and _three days, but don't hurry if we don't call._

He knows what it is, of course. Knows why it is, too. He's played this game for nearly twenty years. But he's too tired to care right then, and besides: Rodney needs it more than he does, stuck instead his cavernous lab that doesn't have even the faintest hint of brine running through it, handling children who've never set foot outside their safe, comfortable boundaries.

A lot of people can say a _lot_ of things about McKay, but playing armchair physicist is never one of them. John's checked enough of his file to know how Rodney's jumped at each new chance offered, no matter how loudly he might defend his right to stay safe and coddled, back in labs he can't wait to get out of.

"Oh, hey I -- oh. Sorry. You're asleep. Sorry."

John cracks a single eyelid, seeing nothing but a distorted black fringe, light twisting in a way that means rubbing his eyes needs to happen soon. Damn does he hate getting old.

But another blink or two and he can see Rodney gazing out over the lake, shoulders loose for the first time in forever, far from the ears they felt compelled to guard day after day. He's holding a fishing rod, put together only a little clumsily, the line a graceful arch from boat to water.

"Hey." His voice is rough, thick with sleep he hadn't meant to indulge in.

"Did I wake you? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to."

It's painful when Rodney looks so shy, glancing up through his eyelashes like he can't bear to see John jolted out of sleep, guilt already adding deep lines around his nose and mouth.

Nobody else gets this, John knows. Nobody. "C'mere," he rasps.

"What? No, no, go back to sleep. I'll be quiet."

"Impossible," John teases, just to see the _moue_ that means Rodney's dying to say _no, nothing is_ impossible _, merely_ improbable, the way he hasn't in too damned long. "Rodney. C'mere."

"Well," Rodney says a few moments later, "this is awkward." He's laid out against John's side, unable to fully trust his weight to the bench John knows can support a whole lot more than their combined pressure.

John stretches his legs out, tangling them in Rodney's and tugging until it's either sink in and accept it, or struggle until the boat really _does_ start a-rockin'. Rodney grumbles and fidgets, but he's learned to trust his body when it comes to John, and eventually he settles, snug from ankle to stomach, head light against John's bicep.

"This isn't comfortable," he lies.

John hums, idly wishing he had a stem of grass to chew, just because the stereotype is so strong in his mind. His grandfather used to tell him stories about afternoons similar to this with John's grandmother, idling away some lazy summer day back when both of them were half of John's age. His mother hadn't liked those stories, blushing and saying, "Dad, hush!", but she'd never really stopped them from being told.

John hasn’t thought about his family in a long time. Being quiet with Rodney does that to him, though, so he doesn’t mind. Just lets the memory drift out and away, taking him wherever the steady, slow breathing of Rodney warm and sleepy against him wants.

The sound of water exiting and reentering its own mass _gloops_ toward them. John blinks. "I thought this lake didn't have any fish?"

"This is O'Neill's lake, right?" Rodney's nose is pressed hot against the side of John's neck. "I wouldn't know, then, I've never been up here and all the stories are of sitting _next_ to it, on the nice, safe, steady ground. Not floating on it in some ancient death-trap."

Another sound, and John pushes himself up just enough to catch a flashing arch of silver before it's swallowed up by a series of concentric ripples.

"You know," he says, putting on his most charming expression, "I kinda forgot to pack us a lunch."

Rodney sighs. Then he shoves at John's raised shoulder, getting them both mostly-prone again, sticky and perfect as he moves in closer. "I can catch them, I think," he says eventually, reluctance a neon-flash of a story John can't wait to pull free, "but you're gutting them. And cooking them. And taking care of everything else."

"I think that's a fair trade," John says, and doesn't mention that he _did_ pack a few other things, including a pretty substantial dinner and all the toys two growing boys need when they're far away from home and have to put up their own shelter against the unfamiliar night sky.


End file.
